It’s been a long time coming,
but I knew one day it would arrive, I just knew it. And sure enough, like the Messiah foretold by prophets, or actually, more like a swig of Jack Daniels, it arrived smelling good, tasting awful and kicked me in the ass
so hard it knocked me out of bed.

Then I answer myself, “Well. When you put it that way, erm, I dunno. My aptitudes and natural abilities are in area which don't bring in a lot of money, or at least enough to support myself…”

“Think, girl, think! You’re going to be unemployed! This is crisis time, you’re not running around panicking and that’s good, but you have to figure out what you’re going to do!”

“I know, okay? I know! Sheesh, get off my back, will ya? I’m trying to figure out this thing which is my life(?), okay? I know, all right already! I know I have to figure out what I’m going to do. I know.”

“Going back to school is the easy option. Your personal coward's way out. You know that. You’re good at school. For you it’s a safe house. Going back to school is a cop out for you. Just so we’re clear on that point. You’re masking the problem by throwing another degree on the fire.

But. You know. Hey. Maybe this time, maybe in this case, taking a time out, racking up student loan debt, and going back to a comfortable environment for you would be good on a lot of levels. It’s still a cop-out, but maybe this time you can be allowed a cop-out. The recession-that-isn’t-a-recession is really bad, unemployment numbers are skyrocketing, there’s a lot of competition for a few jobs. Creative professionals aren't hired as full time staff anymore, it's turned to a consultant profession. You need health insurance and a steady paycheck so consulting isn't for you right now. Hmmmm. Maybe going back to college and riding out the recession-that-isn’t-a-recession behind the safe confines of student loans and academia is a 'good' option for you. Especially if you get a degree in an in-demand, high salary earning profession. And really, what is recession? A recess. You need a recess from life. Recess. School. Yeah, this means something. All signs point to going back to college. Or playing hopscotch and swinging upside down on the monkey bars. So think, girl, think! If you’re going to do this, you better do it right.”

“I know. Duh? Okay? I know. That’s the pressure point. What I like, the things I’d like to do, the things I might be good at doing are the things everyone else wants to do. So the competition will be tough even if the recession-that-isn’t ends in a few years a bunch of us will be competing for the same jobs.”

“Tut tut. Stop that. We’re brainstorming here, there are no bad ideas, everything’s viable at this point. Make a list.”

“Okay.”

Here are the possible degree study avenues:
Manuscript reader. Yes. I would need another college degree to procure a legit job in this highly competitive industry. My art/business/history degrees and the fact that I'm a voracious reader with fingers on the pulse of societal trends and how they effect intellectual property and consequently buying behavior, and that I have a good nose for The Good Stuff don't mean squat to big publishers who hire manuscript readers and literary agents. Heck, the fact that I can use the term intellectual property properly in a sentence doesn't mean squat to big publishers. I've looked into this. They want degreed professionals. Okay. Well, this is a no brainer for me. I already have half a literature degree. Find a college which will accept my already earned English lit credits and I'm on my way to a career in the fast paced world of publishing. Heck! I might even break into the literary agent racket! I'm not at all clear on why I need a degree or any further training for that profession, but publishing houses deem it so, and so it is written, so it is law.

Bio-genetics. I love this stuff. Always have. Genetics, DNA, mitosis, Gregor Mendel...fascinating stuff. Makes me tingle with excitement. Oh sure, there's the whole stem cell debate and cloning paranoia causing a lot of trouble in bio-genetic research circles, but, if I were a gambling person I'd bet the mortgage on: bio-genetic research jobs are to 2014 as IT jobs were to 1995. The good thing about going back to college to study bio-genetics is that it will take me years to earn the required degrees which will land me a job actually researching genetics, DNA and the like. We're talking long term prospect, here. Cloister myself away in the research lab for several years and don't emerge until I land a job on a crack research team funded by ridiculous research grants from the government and voila! I'm one of those people doing a research study "proving" something obvious like: As a species humans are getting prettier because ugly people don't go on dates, marry and reproduce as much as their attractive fellow specites. (Like that word? Me, too. See? I've already coined a bio-genetic term! I am good at this!) The down side is that degrees in bio-genetics require college entrance exam math scores at a level higher than average. I was born without a left brain. So that math score on the entrance exam is problematic. Never say never. But. The good research grant money is given to the good colleges and the good students with the good math test scores. Genetics. See? Genetics are everywhere. I was dealt a crappy set of math genes. Green eyes. A weird nose. Freakishly high foot arches. No left brain. Recessive genes which manifested themselves when my parents' DNA got together. Still. It makes me want it that much more, work that much harder and study that much longer. Pea plants, anyone?


Vegetarian nutritionist. I'm already good at this, but I've learned everything I know on my own without the aid of traditional classes in nutrition. So I'd basically need to spend four years taking classes on how to eat a healthy, nutritious diet without ingesting an animal. Which I pretty much already know. Not to brag or presume, but, I do know a lot about it. Sure, I eat Mike and Ikes for lunch, but I do know it's wrong, I do know what I should eat. If I could afford healthy food, organic produce and the like, or, gasp, had a garden where I cold grow my own, I would eat healthy. But. $8 for a healthy meal made from fresh ingredients v. 75¢ for a bag of Mike and Ikes from the vending machine? You do the math. I have no left brain and even I know someone with my financial limitations doesn't really have a choice.


Marine biology – this is appealing to me on a lot of levels. I like the high seas and the life below the surface. And what with Antarctica falling apart more research and diving options are available (who says global warming is bad?!) and me liking cold weather, the idea of specializing in arctic marine biology is really appealing. And I like Sponge Bob and seahorses and narwhales and rays and I’m a strong swimmer and I’m always doodling sea creatures and I can sing Manta Ray really good so maybe it is my destiny. But. Then. There’s the lab aspect of the degree. You know. Cutting and dissecting animals. I dunno. That’s why I couldn’t be a veterinarian. I just couldn’t do it. So. I dunno. That one might not make it out of the gate. But, four – six years tucked away in marine biology school isn’t without appeal.

Art therapist. Oh stop rolling your eyes. This is an actual profession which isn't new agey and stupid. I'm talking about working with disabled children and adults as well as emotionally wounded children by using art and creative expression to reach them and help them communicate and express themselves. Why do I, the holder of art degrees, need to go to college for this? Because I have to train in psychology and physiology. It's not about pushing the art cart around to the school psychologist's office or taking construction paper and tempera paint and glitter to the psych ward. We're talking more significant and more intense use of art as a therapy tool. Yes. There are credible colleges which offer degrees in this and yes it is a viable career option - niche though it may be - first and foremost a degree in psychology is crucial.

And yes, I’m considering career possibilities which do not require another degree or four – 10 years in college.

For instance
Teaching. Aaack. Well. Actually. Warping young malleable minds is not without its appeal. But. Dealing with their parents is not something I could stomach. What about the collegiate level? Yeah, maybe. I dunno. It’s an “if all else fails” proposition. Along with prostitution and working at a record/art supply/book store. Sure, I could do it, and I might even be really good at it. But. There are issues beyond a paycheck which could work against me and the people I’m serving.


A model for dermatology students. I have a disgusting, huge scar on my ankle and foot. I could travel around the world showing it to first year dermo students so the professors could use a real-life example of just how disfiguring surgical scars can be. I don’t know what the starting salary is, but since it’s a finite niche I’m thinking I should command a decent amount of money per appearance. And eventually with enough treatments via educating the students the scar might fade. Or at least be less noticeable in its grotesqueness. That's a nice perk. Hey. I'm easily pacified. Really. I don't have expectations so I, well, don't expect anything. So an on the job perk of scar treatment is a big deal for me. I can't afford plastic surgery or weekly pedicure treatments, so the on the job perk could really add up to a lot of out of pocket cost savings for me. You go to your bargaining table, I'll go to mine.

But, I'm leaning heavily toward the most promising career possibility: writing country-western songs. A few people in my past told me I have a bizarre and unsuspected knack for it. Maybe it's time to explore that option. I’ve never pursued it because I couldn’t come up with the perfect country-western name.

Well, friends, I have finally been hit with a bolt of inspiration. An epiphany. I don’t mean to brag, but I think I’ve attained country-western marketing nirvana.

Delta-Dawn Coldspurs.

Or, as an ensemble, Delta Dawn and the Cold Spurs.

I know. I know. Sometimes I scare myself. It’s been a long time coming, but I knew one day it would arrive, I just knew it. And sure enough, like the Messiah foretold by prophets, or actually, more like a swig of Jack Daniels, it arrived smelling good, tasting awful and kicked me in the ass so hard it knocked me out of bed. (Or maybe that was the earthquake. Hard to tell. Epiphany, earthquake, tomato, tomahto.) I’m thinking about forging a new niche in the country music market: Urban Country. Songs about urban life with a country twang and whiney despair. You know, like a good old Hank Williams (Sr.) song, life sucks, my truck's broke and the ladies won't have nothin' to do with me type of thing, but with modern urban themes. The good thing about this niche is that there’s a never ending supply of subjects just waiting to be immortalized in song, and all I have to do is ride the bus or train and take in the rich source of material spread out like a smorgasboard before me.

Here are a couple little ditties I scribed. One while I was stuck in traffic for an hour on the bus with a woman slurping Coughuppalottabucks next to me and a woman talking non-stop on her cell phone and one written over a period of soul searching, odes to the professional working class.

Latte Lady on the Bus
Bus stop, wet day, she's there again
Her perfume is the flavor she drinks
Hazelnut? Cinnamon? Something odd like cayenne?
Doesn't really matter 'cuz it all stinks.

Oh lady with the stinky latte
Splashing and sloshing in a paper cup
Yakking on a cell phone you never shut up
Watch out latte lady, the kid behind you knows karate
He's fidgety in his white jammies and has to go potty.

Wearing an air of indifference, above the rest of us
She pays a premium price for her status grande hot beverage
But lady with the stinky latte: You're riding the bus
You don't fool me with your designer drink, you're merely average.

Oh lady with the stinky latte
Splashing and sloshing in a paper cup
Yakking on a cell phone you never shut up
Watch out latte lady, the kid behind you knows karate
He's fidgety in his white jammies and has to go potty.

Yak yak yakkity yak on your cell phone
Jenny. Britney. Tiffany and Kyle
You have a loud tinny ring tone
For every name on your speed dial

Oh lady with the stinky latte
Splashing and sloshing in a paper cup
Yakking on a cell phone you never shut up
Watch out latte lady, the kid behind you knows karate
He's fidgety in his white jammies and has to go potty.

Rules are not made for people like you
No eating, drinking or loud devices on the bus?
Pfft, roll of eyes, scoff of lip, you're not part of that zoo
Thing is, baby, you're no different, you're one of us.

Oh lady with the stinky latte
Splashing and sloshing in a paper cup
Yakking on a cell phone you never shut up
Watch out latte lady, the kid behind you knows karate
He's fidgety in his white jammies and has to go potty.

Big dark glasses, hair just so, fake Kate Spade tote
You've got the look boys love, coy and cloying
Your friends are jealous because you're so haute
But to those of us on the bus you're just annoying.

Oh lady with the stinky latte
Splashing and sloshing in a paper cup
Yakking on a cell phone you never shut up
Watch out latte lady, the kid behind you knows karate
He's fidgety in his white jammies and has to go potty.

Accidents happen but you disobeyed the rules
If one drop of that scalding hot stink lands on me
Or on the karate kid or that big guy's family jewels
We'll sue you and your dad for every last penny.

Oh lady with the stinky latte
Splashing and sloshing in a paper cup
Yakking on a cell phone you never shut up
Watch out latte lady, the kid behind you knows karate
He's fidgety in his white jammies and has to go potty.



Don't Have Much to Lose
The boss told me to pack up my desk
Took a long last look at the city views
HR man came ‘round with my last paycheck
Next stop: Unemployment queues

No job, no car, no fancy clothes and such,
No man, no cat, just a bottle of booze
Cold hard fact staring back:
When you don’t have much,
You don’t have much to lose.

All those years, gave it my best, my all
Late nights, weekends, I never refused
When the phone rang, I took every call
Now it’s over and, well, I just feel used.

No job, no car, no fancy clothes and such,
No man, no cat, just a bottle of booze
Cold hard fact staring back:
When you don’t have much,
You don’t have much to lose.

Never earned much money, just enough to get by,
In spite of excellent annual reviews
“Keep up the good work, glad you’re on our side,”
Inflation at 6 percent, but a two percent raise had to do

No job, no car, no fancy clothes and such,
No man, no cat, just a bottle of booze
Cold hard fact staring back:
When you don’t have much,
You don’t have much to lose.

No problems, just challenges and opportunities,
Went to the seminars and came back enthused
Lived by the mottos sold by Successories
Pride. Integrity. Diversity. Red, white and blue.

No job, no car, no fancy clothes and such,
No man, no cat, just a bottle of booze
Cold hard fact staring back:
When you don’t have much,
You don’t have much to lose.

Clients, deadlines, employee of the month
Gone in an instant, ended in a manager's lame ruse
Unemployed...a statistic...one billionth
Reduced to a faceless number on the nightly news

No job, no car, no fancy clothes and such,
No man, no cat, just a bottle of booze
Cold hard fact staring back:
When you don’t have much,
You don’t have much to lose.

Bitter? Not me, it was only a job
Someone had to go, the boss had to choose
Pour a tall drink, go home and have a sob
Count blessings and have a long drunken snooze.

No job, no car, no fancy clothes and such,
No man, no cat, just a bottle of booze
Cold hard fact staring back:
When you don’t have much,
You don’t have much to lose.

(repeat chorus to fade)


I'm working on my next big chart topping hit. Here's a teaser. It's titled:
I Sold My Ideas but I Wouldn't Sell My Soul



Oh. And. Add this to my list of things that make me mad: It's pissed me right off for a long time. I never correct anyone because that's just rude and show offy and nitpicky and annoying and serves no purpose other than to prove I know too many words, feel a need to prove that I am smarter and therefore better, and need to get out and socialize more. Only one of those things is true, so I don't correct people. But. This is one verbal idiom that really irritates me. Even intelligent, well traveled, otherwise well-spoken people get tripped up on this for some unexplainable reason. So I'm saying it here, now and for the public record: It's Belgian waffle, not Belgium waffle. Remember it this way: When you visit the country of Belgium you can eat Belgian waffles made by local Belgians. In the same way you do not ingest France fries, Italy sausage, Germany beer, Columbia coffee, England muffins, Mexico mole, Ireland oatmeal, Canada bacon or drop a Spain fly into someone's drink, you do not eat Belgium waffles.

Or, if you prefer HGTTG parlance: Belgium is the most shockingly rude swear word in the Universe. Belgian is merely a descriptive word for the Flemish and other inhabitants and ex-pats of the country of Belgium. And a variety of waffle.

Labels: Belgian Waffles, country-western lyrics, CTA, Delta Dawn Coldspurs, Hank Williams of the 21st Century Professional, Unemployment, urban country, What the swut am I going to do now?

8:12 PM

Wednesday, April 23, 2008  

Are nervous breakdowns like insanity? If you're cognitive enough to wonder if you're having one, you're not? Do they even still call them nervous breakdowns or is that an un-PC and outdated term? I hope not. I like the term nervous breakdown. Of course, this is coming from someone who is speculating about whether or not she's having one, so my opinion on phraseology might not be relevant.



I went swinging today.

Yep. Swinging. On a swing.


When I was a kid my grandparents lived for a few years in a little neighborhood with a cute little neighborhood park. My grandad used to walk me down the street to the park and I'd climb on the monkey bars and run screaming like a banshee down a hill I thought was equivalent to Mt. Everest and then I'd settle in for the real business of the park: Swinging. The swings in that park were phenomenal. They were placed, strategically, by a thrill seeking/psychotic park designer, on a plateau of a small valley in the park. So as you pushed the swing forward you would swing out over the slope of the valley. Ground would fall away below you and the feeling of flying was amplified exponentially because of that potentially sadistic but ever-so-thrilling placement. The swings were also extra tall, so it was rough to get momentum going. You really had to work your legs to get the swings off the ground, but boy when you did you really flew.

There were tales of brave/stupid kids who dared to jump off the swing and into the great blue yonder. My brother told me he heard about a kid who went into orbit and was being tracked by NASA. I was really little and didn't fully grasp the concept of orbit, or NASA for that matter, but it didn't seem out of the realm of possibility. If you saw the swings and their placement on the slope, you'd accept the plausibility, too.

I was generally fearless when it came to pumping swings to the maximum height and speed, and I'd made a few jumps myself on the swingset at home and on the school playground. So I was no stranger to feats of daring peril on a swing.

But.

Even I maintained a healthy respect for the swings in that park and clung tightly to the chains and didn't risk pushing the limits of physics. On lesser swings I loved to push the physics limits to the point the chain would go slack. I loved the feeling of dead air with the slack chain. Sometimes just before the chains went slack I'd twist my body so the swing chains would twist, a 180. This usually resulted in hair loss. But I kept the chains taught at all times on the swings in the park by my grandparents' house. The chains holding the seat were the good old fashioned sturdy kind, the kind with huge forged links with connecting centers big enough to trap and pinch little kid fingers and stray pigtail hairs. It wasn't a real day at the park if I didn't return home with two blistered and pinched hands, pigtails askew and missing strands of hair. And the chains had really good squeaks. Really, really good squeaks. They were, you know, real swings.

They don't make 'em like that any more. Health and safety standards. Liability insurance. Litigation. Kids are safer but, I dunno, I have difficulty warming up to anyone who's never blistered their hands raw from having a blast on a swing.

Right.

Nervous breakdown.

Here it comes.


My dad's in intensive care. Again. A ton of stuff is wrong with him. No definitive answers. Just a lot of tests and tubes and medications and specialists.

Intensive care is intense. They're strict about visitors and visiting hours.


So.


I took my parents' car for a drive. I didn't have a destination in mind. I just: Drove.

And eventually I realized I wasn't far from the park where a kid was launched into orbit via a swing.



Okay. I knew that area has fallen into decay. The once charming streets with nice houses and good neighbors are, well, you know. "Bad." I knew that. No surprise. It happened a long time ago. The area just turned bad. Quickly. So I haven't been in that area for a long time.


But there I was.


"Eh, whatever, I've been mugged, beaten, robbed, and ridiculed. So what if I add a stabbing or rape or abduction to the list?"


And with that I pulled into the overgrown parking lot and walked around the park.


The Mt. Everest hill was there, though I laughed out loud at how the small the hill is through adult eyes.

And there, oh glory of miracles, there were the swings.

Okay, not the swings, but, the original frame with a lone newer swing attached, was still perched on the precipice of the valley.

And you know what? The swing still looks huger than normal swings and the peril factor of swinging out over the slope is still very real. Someone, maybe a park employee who himself played on those swings as a kid, knows what they've got there, knows the importance of a really good swing, and has maintained at least one functioning swing.


So I spent 45 minutes getting blisters on my hands, getting hairs caught and pulled out by the chains of the swing and trying to figure out the required trajectory and jump point to launch myself into orbit.


I only stopped because a cop pulled up, got out of the squad car and came over to see what I was doing.


Swinging, duh, I was swinging.


Apparently he thought I was doped up on crack like the other adults who swing in the park in the middle of the afternoon.

He just walked around the park and cast that squinty eyed cop look at me now and then. No law against swinging in a park in the middle of the day. Ha ha, officer, you can't nail me for anything, go bust the crack dealer two blocks that way.


I didn't feel re-energized or enlightened or inspiried. For a few minutes there I was kind of happy about bringing back that feeling I had as a kid, higher, higher, higher, falling, falling, falling. Just me, the swing and physics. But that was pretty much the extent of it.

And that made me wonder about the nervous breakdown.


Aren't you supposed to "feel" something, something special or inspired, when, as an adult, you re-visit a childhood pleasure? Aren't you supposed to be reminded of the simple pleasures in life and emerge with a new, more positive outlook on life?

I mean, maybe I did and just didn't realize it. It seems like it was just fun for 45 minutes and then it was over and I had to go back to reality. A reality which sucks. Which, actually, pretty much sums up life. Childhood is fun for about 45 minutes and then you have to go to a sucky reality.


I know. That sounds more depressed than nervous breakdowny.



It's just, well, I dunno.


My dad died, twice, and is now looking at a very distorted reality from life as he's known it. Sure, he survived, twice, and that's all that matters. But watching him fight for life only to learn the life he fought so hard to save is not going to be the life he's going to have once his doctors say he can go home is rough. I think he'll adapt. People do adapt. But. This isn't what he fought so hard to save, his will to survive was not fueled by a passion for hospital beds in the living room, oxygen tanks on wheelie carts and dyslexia. Yes. My dad is now dyslexic. Sure, not the end of the world, loads of people are dyslexic. But. Would you want to fight to save your life only to find out you have to learn how to read again?


He's coping better than I am. I guess he truly is just happy to be alive. I guess that's all that matters.


Tell that to my mortgage company, the people collecting medical bills and my boss who keeps reminding me that my employment clock runs out on May 1 unless I "make up" a new job.


And that's where the nervous breakdown comes into play.


I just don't care anymore. (Isn't that an '80s Genesisollins song?) I haven't cared for a long time, but that fight for survival gene was keeping me going, making me deal with the ridiculousness of it all. Now, well, I don't care. I could very well lose everything in the next month. And I feel nothing. So what? I don't have much to lose. Whatever. I always hated parts of that job anyway. I was never in love with my condo. I'm so far in debt thanks to medical bills it'll be years before I get them paid off. So, you know, really, unemployment and homelessness are not such a big deal when weighed against the option of keeping a job working for a woman who harbors a lot of animosity and no respect for me or my abilities merely to collect a paycheck which barely keeps a roof over my head and pays medical bills. That ain't livin'. It's not even surviving.


I think in the moment I was hoping for some sort of epiphany on that swing. It didn't arrive. And that doesn't surprise me.


But what constitutes a nervous breakdown? Apathy? Disregard for providing employment and shelter for yourself? Not "feeling" anything other than the laws of physics when you play on a swing?

9:47 PM

Sunday, April 20, 2008  

American Airlines has been my domestic airline of choice for, well, pretty much forever. Oh sure, I fly other airlines sometimes. And I love Virgin. If I could fly Virgin everywhere I have to go, I would. But. Unfortunately that’s not possible. Especially domestically.

But let me qualify the “of choice” rating in this case. Virgin is my favorite airline because: They suck less than other airlines. I’m not saying they’re great or that it’s a wonderful high flying feeling of constant Nirvana (yeah, I’m on a Nirvana kick these days, sorry. It’ll pass.) I’m just saying that in the realm of airlines, Virgin sucks less than other airlines. And American has sucked less than other domestic airlines. Again, to reiterate, that’s not saying much. Flying was one long abusive chamber of horrors before 9/11. Post-9/11 it’s become an abusive chamber of horrors with self-important rent-a-cops running herd on the cattle. (And yes, yes, some TSA agents are highly trained and experienced and I’m grateful, okay? I’m grateful.) But travel through O’Hare, not just security, on any random day and it will be blazingly obvious in terms of customer service, crowd control it’with a heavy dose of fear factor.


“Hi, um, oh geeze, I’m sorry, (sniffle sniffle), excuse me, I’m sorry. I need to get on a flight from Chicago O’Hare to Detroit as quickly as possible. I have a family emergency. My dad had a hea hea heart attttaaaaaaack. (Sob sob) I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just got the news and I’m very upset, I just need to get to Detroit as fast as humanly possible.”

“Okay. Okay, I’m so sorry. Let’s see what we can do. Oh shoot. There’s a flight in 20 minutes. I don’t suppose you can make that…”

“Um, no. It will take me that long to get through security.”

“Right. Right. Yes. Sorry. Lessseee. Hmmm. Darnit. That’s the last flight we have today and taking a loot at other airlines I’m only seeing stand-by available on the last flight. You can’t book and buy a stand-by ticket on the day of travel. Sorry. So, the best we can do is tomorrow morning, 6:50 AM.”

“Okay, book me. How much is the ticket? I also have frequent flyer miles. Whichever is easiest and fastest. I just need to get to Detroit. I have to get to my dad. “

“Of course, of course. Now, we do have the compassionate fare program. We’ll just need a phone number of the hospital.”

“Erm, okay, yes, I can get that for you.” (racing online to find phone number of hospital)

“Oh, wait, unfortunately we don’t have any compassionate fares on that flight.”

“Okay, whatever, I just need to get to Detroit.”

“Okay, when will you be returning?”

“Uh, returning? I don’t know. I mean, how could I know?”

“Right, right, of course. This could be problematic.”

“I can’t just buy a one way ticket?”

“Oh sure, yes, but, well, it will cost you $780. Or 50,000 frequent flyer miles.”

“Whoa, whoa, $780 for a one way ticket from Chicago to Detroit?”

“I’m sorry. These last minute one way bookings are always high. I think you’d be better off booking round trip with an arbitrary return date and then change the return date when you know your plans. (typy tippy typy tippy keyboard noise) Oh yes, that’s much better. Round trip, returning Wednesday, $690. AND, by doing that you can request a refund for compassionate expense after the fact. In the end you’ll pay around $400 plus a $75 rescheduling fee if you change the Wednesday flight.”

“Okay, I guess, I mean, I don’t have any other options. Wait. Would the round trip ticket be 50,000 air miles, too?”

“Yes. Is that how you’d like to pay for the ticket?”

“Yes, might as well use the air miles.”

“I’ll have to transfer you to the Award Booking agent.”

“Okay, whatever, I need to get this done and call my mother.”

Tinny muzak.

Pompous and self righteous advertising for the airline. (Seriously, I’m waiting on hold to buy a ticket, you have the sale. I’m captive. Shut up.)

“Hewo, dis iz Lili.”

“Hi Lili, I’m on hold waiting to book a ticket from Chicago to Detroit with my air miles. It’s a family emergency.”

“Oh so sowwee. Awr you going to Hong Kong?”

I kid you not. Hong Kong, Hong. Swutting. Kong.

“Erm, no, like I said, just Chicago O’Hare to Detroit Metro.”

“Oh, see, I’m international agent. Do you speak Mandarin?”

I swear, on a stack of Hitchhiker’s Guides, she asked me if I speak Mandarin.

I was certain I must have misunderstood her. I was very upset, very stressed, I was sure I had to have misunderstood her.

“I’m sorry, pardon me?”

“You speak Mandarin?”

Very nearly said, “No, darn the luck, just Tagalog.” But instead just sat there, blurry eyed from crying, dazed and confused about speaking Mandarin to book a flight from Chicago to Detroit.

“No. I’m afraid I don’t.”

“See, you need agent with better Engwish.” (Yes, I know I’m going to Hell, okay? I know she was only trying to help in her own way and hey, she speaks Engwish and Mandarin and I only speak Engwish and a little bit of German and art history French and Italian. Okay? I’m not making fun of her. It was just a really absurd conversation in the midst of the worst day of my life(?) thus far.

So click, I went on hold with the tinny muzak and self righteous, self serving, pointless ads for the airline. (Note to self: GREAT marketing idea: place voice ads for competing airlines on airline hold muzak. Sure, it’ll never happen, but, it IS a great idea.)

And then I encountered: June.

June must have had a really, really bad week last week when American canceled all their flights. Because June was a high flying b-i-t-c-h. Oh yes I did call her a bitch. Right there, I did it again.

I explained to her my journey in trying to get to Detroit thus far.

When I got to the part about my dad having a heart attack I lost my emotional grip. I heard myself say, “My dad had a heart attack.” I hear the words come out of my mouth. I was so focused on the flight when I said them before that I didn’t really hear them. This time, though, this time I heard them and reality hit, hard, and crashed around me. I was choking back sobs, trying to get some composure, trying to get this swutting ticket taken care of so I could get off the phone with the airline and call my mother. But when I tried to talk all that came out were squeaks or sobs or that gulping gasping noise you make when you’re crying so hard you get dizzy and your shoulders lurch back and forth.

You might think a customer service agent emphasis on SERVICE would a) be compassionate and sympathetic, b) be kind and gentle affecting a soothing tone for the distraught customer whose father could be dying, or at least c) cut the poor sobbing woman trying to get to Detroit a little slack.

But no.

June said, again, I kid you not, “I can’t help you if I can’t understand you.”

For a brief moment I thought she was bringing up the Mandarin language issue.

Then I realized she was being a bitch to me because I was crying and apparently wasting her precious time.


But me, ever the polite girl who is always the first to apologize, said, “I’m sorry. I’m just very upset. This is a very distressing time for me.”

“Maybe you should take a moment and call us back when you’re more composed.”

I kid you swutting not.

Mouth agape on floor.

“Um, no, I’m okay, let’s just get this ticket booked.” Deep breath. In, out. Breathe. Do it for your dad. Buck up lieutenant. Write a scathing letter to her boss next week. Right now, just get this ticket to Detroit.

“Fine. We’ll deduct 50,000 miles from your account. I’ll need a credit card for the $150.”

“Okay, it’s a VISA, the number is…hang on, wait a minute. What $150?”

“The booking fee, Homeland Security fee, fuel tax fee, service fee.”

“But you’re already ripping me off 25,000 frequent flyer miles. And now $150?”

“You want two one way tickets. That’s 25,000 25,000 each ticket. And the fees are standard. If you read your program information you would know that.”

Seriously. Bitch of the Year, 2008, June who works customer service for American Airlines. She went the extra mile to not only treat a distraught customer horribly, she threw in the little miss smarty pants phrase and tone! Let’s hear it for June!

“Um, okay, wait. Well, wait. I’m trying to think, trying to be smart about this. How much does the ticket cost, in dollars, again? I’m sorry (again, apologizing for no reason other than I felt completely inept and belittled by June) I wrote down some numbers with the first person I spoke with and now I’m confused.”

“50,000 frequent flyer miles and $150, or $780 for a one way ticket.”

“Right, but what about the round trip ticket returning Wednesday. I think she said I could apply for a compassionate refund if I showed proof my dad had a heart atta atta atttttaaaaaak!”

“If you’re going to yell at me I can’t help you. I don’t have to listen to you yell at me.”

Okay. Whoa. Wait a minute. I wasn’t yelling, I was crying because my dad had a massive heart attack and I have to get to Detroit ASAP.

“Yak know what, how about if I speak to your manager?”

“She’s busy.”

“I’ll wait.”

C’est la guerre.

Finally, finally Miss Cathy, I kid you not, Miss Cathy, gets on the phone. I have no idea who Miss Cathy is and she sounds a bit like June, enough that I actually say, “Is this June? I’m on hold for your supervisor, remember?” \

“No, this is Miss Cathy.”

“Okay, whatever, mydadhadaheartattack and I need to get from Chicago to Detroit as soon as possible. I believe the first agent I spoke with reserved a seat for me tomorrow morning and returning next Wednesday. But I haven’t paid for it yet. I want to confirm the details of the flight. June confused me and wanted to charge me 50,000 frequent flyer miles and $150 for a 30 minute flight.”

“Yes, that’s right. You’re booking at the last minute. We’re out of compassionate fares. It’s going to cost you 50,000 miles and $150 or $690 for a one way ticket tomorrow.”

“What happened to the round trip ticket with a Wednesday return?”

“ You HAVE that, I SAID it’s 50,000 miles and $150.”

“But what if I want to pay for it with a credit card instead of air miles?”

“I said $690 for a one way ticket tomorrow.”

“Uh huh, and I said a round trip ticket returning next Wednesday.”

This went on a painfully, horrendously, non-comedically long time.



In the end I paid $780 for a round trip ticket from Chicago to Detroit, a 30 minute flight, to be with my family because my dad had a massive heart attack.

Allegedly if I can prove my dad was in an emergency situation I can request a compassionate refund.

Based on these conversations I highly doubt American Airlines gives a rat’s whisker about compassion so I’m not expecting much.

I will have to decide if I will give them my business again. From a practicality standpoint, it’s not really possible.

So what’s the next best thing? Publicly slandering the already slandered reputation of American Airlines.


Urrrrgh.

1:14 PM

Tuesday, April 15, 2008  

Single/Zero.

Well, here it is, my first April 15 as a mortgage paying homeowner. Woo hoo.

Everyone told me it would all be worth it when April 15 arrived.

The increase in my mortgage payment because I didn’t have enough money in escrow to pay for the property tax increase assigned to my condo six months after I bought it? WORTH IT!!! My friends and family screamed in unison.

The ever mounting repair and maintenance expenses? WORTH IT!!!! My friends and family screamed in unison.

The condo association assessment fees (and increase to match our new appraisals and increased property tax)? WORTH IT!!!! My friends and family screamed in unison.

So, the first two weeks of February were devoted to sorting through all my 2007 financial documents and finding out just what my April 15 pot of gold would be now that I’m a homeowner. I had receipts for everything. Everything. Business related expenses, medical expenses, tax expenses, home repair expenses, you name it, I had receipts for it. I had my sleeves pushed up high and a baseball cap on (to take the place of one of those olde tyme visors accountants wear in olde tyme movies). I used the free tax online tax application the government offers. Which I found shockingly good, helpful and easy to use. I thought it was great.

Until I got to the end, the part where you learn how much the IRS owes you.

Okay, I mean, I admit, my expectations were unrealistically high. But everyone told me I’d get a HUGE tax return now that I’m a homeowner. People threw out example numbers in the thousands. “Enough to pay off a few medical bills and get some work done in the bathroom and kitchen?” I’d ask, and with vigorous assuredness, resounding affirmations were given. “Trill, you’ll be able to do all that and finally take a vacation.”

Wow.

This home ownership thing really is great at tax time.

Whoa, not so fast there girlie.

When I reached the end of the IRS’ tax program, I was on the edge of my seat in jubilant anticipation. I was fantasizing about paying off two MRI bills…thinking about how nice it would be to have a new faucet in the kitchen…even musing about taking a week off from work and going somewhere on a, um, what’s that thing people do when they’re not working? That place they go? What’s that called? Oh yeah, a vacation. I haven’t had one in so long I can’t remember what it is.

Which is good. Because I can’t remember what I’m missing. And that’s good because there’s not a vacation in my future. At least not this year.

That glorious, fabulous, it will all be worth it on April 15 advice I was given?


Heh heh heh. Silly Trillian, tax refunds are for people with kids!


A friend has Turbo Tax and insisted I try using that instead of the IRS’ free program. So I did. Turbo Tax “found” me less refund money than the IRS’ program. What concerned me about that was that I thought my refund should be +/- a few dollars, no matter where or who did my taxes. There difference between the TurboTax end number and the IRS’ program end number wasn’t huge, but, it was enough to concern me. Enough to make me shell out the money and go to a professional. One of my friends has a guy she swore would find me huge amounts of tax refund money.

I called to make an appointment with him. He asked me a few questions over the phone. He politely declined to do my taxes for me, even though I was referred by a long standing client of his and I was wiling to pay his fee. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be insensitive, but you don’t earn enough money, your condo isn’t valued high enough and you don’t have children or other deductions to make it worth it for me, or you, to have me prepare and file your taxes. The IRS has a great program online, now, you should just use that. In your case it shouldn’t take more than an hour, probably less.” I didn’t tell him I slaved over their program for two weeks. I just thanked him and wished him luck during the tax season. He told me he gets through it by focusing on taking his wife and getting away from the kids for a week on April 17 when he jets off to St. Barts.

How nice for him. How nice for Mrs. Tax Accountant.

I was beginning to sense what I suspected all along: Paying a mortgage and property taxes is not the rose petal strewn, chirping birds overhead path to the land of milk and honey that it's made out to be. Unless you’re making a ton of money, paying a mortgage and property taxes doesn’t do a whole heckuva lot to ease the financial tax burden of being a single/zero.

And that’s what it ultimately comes down to: If you’re single/zero, you’re a cash cow for the US government. With or without a mortgage and property tax, single/zeros with an average income pay ~37% of their gross income to taxes (depending on which state in which they reside, local taxes, property value, etc.). And I learned that “average” is staggeringly higher than I realized. Turns out I am, just like my mortgage broker said, low income in the eyes of home lenders, and low income in the eyes of a lot of other people with a higher income. And higher tax refunds.

Still concerned about the discrepancy between the IRS’ program number and Turbo Tax’s refund amount, I bit the bullet and went to nationally recognized tax preparation business.

I met a very nice woman who scoured all my receipts, plugged in every deduction she could find (and commended me for being such a nice and charitable person and promised to make a donation to the ASPCA after talking about all that they’re doing and why I donate so much of my time and as much money as I can to them) and the end result was dead center between the TurboTax refund amount and the IRS’ program refund amount.

Fortunately, fortunately I did one thing right. I didn’t make the rookie mistake of changing my deductions at work. I remained a single/zero. That saved me from having to pay, yes, PAY, income taxes this year.

Yes.

I bought a home. I pay a mortgage. I’ve entered the sacred land of the “long form.”



But I’m still a single/zero.

And my tax refund was the same paltry pittance it’s been in the past.

Next year, if I still have a job and a home, I’ll get a slightly higher refund because I’ll be able to declare property tax payments and get a little refund from the state. But those increased property taxes I paid, the ones that increased my mortgage payment because I didn’t have enough money in escrow? Yeah. Well, I don’t get credit for that because those taxes, those property tax payments, were for 2006 taxes. Sure, I paid them in 2007, but, they “don’t count” because I wasn’t a homeowner in 2006, the year the taxes were assessed.

Urrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.

That made me kind of mad. But I actually kind of knew it, I just thought, well, you know, I thought I’d get so many other credits that I’d be thrilled just to have more than usual. The disturbing part is that the nice lady at the tax place “ran the numbers” for me as if I’d been able to claim the property tax payments. Probably won’t come as a surprise to any other single/zero homeowners on a low middle income that the refund would not have been significantly higher. It would not have paid my MRI bills or taken me on a vacation. It might have paid a plumber for an hour of work on my kitchen faucet.

The nice lady at the tax preparation place told me I need to earn a lot more money, or get married and try to have a baby or two if I really want to see any real tax refund.

“You’re still a single zero. Buying a home doesn’t change that for most people,” she said, apologetically. She said it, not me. Single. Zero. Might as well get it tattooed on my forehead. “But hey, at least you’re not making a landlord rich. And in thirty years you’ll be rent and mortgage free,” she added congenially, offering an apologetic smile.

Yeah. True. Thanks for reminding me.

Still, it does cushion the blow of losing my home if I lose my job. Nothing ventured, nothing gained and all that. I tried it. I jumped into the home ownership game, I took all the advice I was given, I read and studied and hoped for the best, and ultimately without a husband, children and/or a nice hefty income, it didn’t make much difference.

Oh sure, when my hard drive crashed I could have bought a new computer instead of putting in a new hard drive. That $1,500+ business expense would have garnered me a few extra tax refund dollars. And I was just $500 shy in medical expenses to claim them on my taxes. Fingers crossed for next year! (Just in case you’re wondering, your out of pocket medical expenses have to be at least 7.5% of your gross income before you can claim them as “medical expenses.” I have no idea what they are if they total less than 7.5% of your AGI, but the government doesn’t consider them to be deduction worthy. 7.5% is a large portion of anyone’s salary. My out of pocket expenses are staggering. But I was still $500 shy of the golden deduction number. If you’ve been so sick or injured that you’re hoping to use this deduction, a) I’m sorry you’ve been so unwell and b) I’m sorry that you better be earning minimum wage and working part time if you really want to cash in on that deduction.)

But those deductions wouldn’t have added up to a hill of beans in the grand scheme of my tax refund. They would have given me a few more dollars, but they would not have taken me on vacation.

Because I am: Single/Zero.

I can’t do anything about that. No one wants to marry me and I can’t afford to be a single mother.

However, I can remind married with children people to thank their single/zero friends, relative and colleagues. Maybe even use some of your tax refund to offer to buy the single/zero in your life a drink or foot the bill for a weekend getaway. Why should you be so thankful to single/zeros? Because we’re helping foot the bill for your children’s education (presuming they go to public schools) and indirectly funding your tax return. The government gives us single/zeros less so you can have more.

You’re welcome.

Regardless of your feelings about homosexuality, you need to also thank every gay person for their generous contribution to your children’s education and your tax refund. That guy at work who’s been in a monogamous, committed relationship with another man for the past 25 years is, in the eyes of the tax forms: A single zero. Just a reminder. There’s more to the same-sex marriage issue than gay pride parades and health insurance. There are a lot of tax dollars at stake.

But hey! There is some good news! I’m on the list to get my economic stimulus check the first week of May! Woo hoo!!!! I received a notice in the mail saying I might get as much as $300! A whopping $300!!!! Okay, sure, I know a lot of other people who’ve been notified that they might get as much as $1,200, but you know, us single/zeros aren’t worthy and we don’t have as many expenses as people with children. So. You know. I understand. So rather than stimulate the economy I’ll give whatever the IRS deems me worthy of to some charities.

I know. I know. I come off sounding bitter when I start ranting about tax and the single girl.

If I could afford a bottle of booze I’d just go drink. But I can barely scrape up money for peanut butter so instead of quietly passing out drunk I’ll vent my frustration. Yep, give single/zeros tax credits for not putting a child in school (and hence draining tax dollars) and I’ll go away and shut up about this. It really is that simple. Give us a tax credit in the amount 2.5 children in a school for 12 years costs and I’ll be quiet. And my medical bills will be paid off, and I’ll hire a plumber and I’ll go on vacation.

Yes. I will stimulate the economy.

But as it stands my taxes are stimulating public school funds, schools where I have no children taking advantage of the tax funded resources. So. your kid swutting well better grow up to make this world a better place for the single/zeros who funded their education. It’s the very least they can do.

12:27 PM

 

I can't let this momentous and holy reverent day pass without quoting Meryn Cadell, sure it's a different pope, but whatever, different name, same oppressing religion, it's all papal to me:
Well, I love that man, Pope John Paul III.
I love him, probably more than he deserves.
Okay, so he persecutes homosexuals,
does not believe in abortion,
vists with Kurt Waldheim
and tells us not to take the Pill,
there's still a certain je ne sais quoi...
Some peace, some love some goodwill
Yeah, the Pope, Pope, Pope, Pope Pope.
Then he scooted away in that great Popemobile
I was feeling so trampled
I didn't know what else to feel.
Then we all kissed the ground
where John Paul had been.....
I can hardly wait
til someone famous comes to town again.

9:58 AM

Monday, April 14, 2008  

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Mom.

I have tried very, very hard, put forth extreme amounts of discipline, effort and will to void myself of emotions over the past few years. I’m convinced feeling nothing is the best thing for some people. And I’ve come a long way. I feel nothing about feeling nothing. I’m not bothered about the concept of no emotions. I’m not happy or enthused. I’m not sad or confused. I feel nothing about the concept. That’s a huge part of the process (I think) and one of the biggest hurdles. My experience has been that you have to truly be apathetic and disassociated (and a little disaffection helps, too) about feelings to void yourself of them. Good and bad, you have to be indifferent about them to freely let go of them.

How did I learn to not care about the good ones like humor and joy and bliss? Eh, no big deal. I have so few occasions to pull out the good emotions anymore that letting go of them, being apathetic about them isn’t a big deal.

Bliss? Ha! That’s such a foreign concept to me I can’t even get my mind around what it even is. I think it might be something like really good sex or Nirvana (the Hindu concept, not the band). People strive for it, work toward it, think it’s gonna be great, but my guess is that it’s a lot of build up and hype which only leads to disappointment (which ironically and poignantly is more akin to the career arc of the band, not the Hindu concept and don’t think the palindrome-ness of that irony doesn’t strike me as fundamentally profound)

So letting go of the “hope” for bliss was easy. Really easy. I’ll besmirch bliss’ reputation at the drop of a hat. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt bliss, but I think I came close once or twice. It’s overrated.

Joy? Well, see above, bliss. One time many years ago a boyfriend (you know it was a long time ago when I start bandying about the term boyfriend) took me shoe shopping. It was my birthday. He picked me up early from work, took me to lunch where copious amounts of really good Champagne were consumed and then took me shoe shopping. Yes. It was joyous. I felt joy from my head to my toes. Not so much because of the consumerism salving my centers of longing and inadequacy, or the booze salving the inhibition sector of my brain, but because my boyfriend knew me well enough and cared about me enough to plan this afternoon of alcoholic and consumeristic debauchery for me. He liked me, he really liked me. Oh sure, a month later he really liked another girl a lot more than he really liked me and gave me an “it’s not you, it’s not me, it’s this girl I met…” break-up line, thus ending the brief period of joy brought on by an erroneous feeling that he cared about me and wanted to be with me and wanted to try to make me happy. (And back then I was a generally happy person, I didn’t need to be made happy. He just wanted to do things to make me happier, he liked making me happy. And then he met a new girl and he wanted to make her happy. Whatever. People are fickle. Dating sucks. Such is life.) So that joy was short lived.

There have been other joyous moments and occasions. The Furry Creature gave me a lot of joy. A lot. He was tuned into my joy sector. Listening to music, reading words written by a gifted wordsmith or looking at certain paintings often sparks a joyous epiphany. One time I was all alone in a very isolated area of the Highlands and out of nowhere I had an overwhelming feeling that can only be described as joy. Out of nowhere, in the middle of nowhere, no one else for miles (and miles) rain chucking down, and there I was, all joyous. But, those joyous moments could just be sensory reactions to environmental stimuli. Pleasing sensory reactions, but merely environmental stimuli nonetheless. Not something stirring gaily deep within my “soul.”

Eh, whatever. I don’t long for it or yearn for it. I accept it if it happens, enjoy the moment, go along for the ride, but if I never felt it again I wouldn’t feel incomplete. And it’s been a really, really long time since my senses have been environmentally stimulated.

But this voiding of emotions, this state of non-feeling being I’ve been trying to attain…it’s a process, not an event. Sometimes something sneaks up on me, catches me unaware and makes me feel.

I listened to an old Tom Waits album, yes, vinyl, that old, a few days ago. I don’t think it’s possible to actually feel joyous as a result of listening to Tom Waits, but, I did feel somewhat different, slightly epiphanatic. (h8ters: Spare me the Tom Waits email, okay? I love him, you know I love him, and if you don’t love him, cool, fine. Whatever. Rock on.) One of the reasons I was listening to Tom Waits (not that I or anyone else needs a reason to listen to Tom Waits) is because I’m trying to let go of some of my cds, vinyl and gasp, mix tapes. I mean, I have iTunes for crying out loud. But those records, I mean, they’re old friends. There is nothing like putting a record on the spindle and watching the needle drop and the music begin. I feel, yes, feel sorry for youngsters who’ve never experienced that feeling. The anticipation and the instantly gratifying fulfillment playing out in front of you is like no other experience. Simple pleasures, you know. Is that joy? I don’t think so – it’s more a sensory response thing again.

But.Tom Waits vinyl and a glass of wine on a lonely Saturday night? Yeah, well, yeah, that’sgood. Comforting. I don’t think joyous, but, very, very good.

Hey. You go to your church, I’ll go to mine.

So, I was sitting there in the dark drinking and listening to Tom put a voice on my “soul,” the cracks and pops from the scratches on the vinyl adding to Tom’s ambiance when I realized, “This is so swutting good. This feels so good. Me, Tom Waits, a scratched record, a glass of cheap wine and a cold, rainy night in a dark room. Yes. Life is good.” I was musing on whether or not that could be joy – it felt good, and it can feel really good to hurt really bad, but, can it be joy? Doubtful. But I couldn’t put that album in the “sell” pile. Something’s making me hang onto that old, scratched, warped, worn out record. Nostalgia. Sentimentality. Control. (Which, by the way, would make a fantastic cd name for an emo band: Sentimentality Control) Whatever the reason, it’s not in the pile of old friends heading out to the used record store. I feel something for that album, and for Tom Waits and I can't sell him. I'm lonely. Horribly, suicidally lonely. But. As long as there's a Tom Waits record to be heard, I'm not alone.

Dr. Strangelove. Well. Now. You know, it always comes back to Dr. Strangelove, doesn’t it? There is no disputing, no argument, that Dr. Strangelove evokes, and always has evoked, a lot of feelings. I can’t walk past a Coke machine without thinking about that scene and sniggering to myself. When a waiter asks me what I’d like to drink I smile and say, “Water, please,” but what I’m always thinking is, “Water, that's what I'm getting at, water. Mandrake, water is the source of all life. Seven-tenths of this earth's surface is water. Why, do you realize that seventy percent of you is water?” I’m not one of those movie quoting people. But. Dr. Strangelove so impacted me, so affected me, shaped so much of my perspective on art, words, comedy, politics and all that is good and visionary and genius in this world that it’s impossible for me to not hear that dialog in my head.

Yes. I regularly hear voices in my head and they are Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden and Slim Pickens.

The first time I saw Dr. Strangelove was at a dingy theater in Detroit. I was 11. It came to my dad’s attention that my education and perspective about Cold War politics and history were being shaped solely by Boris and Natasha cartoons. And while he didn’t think that was an entirely bad thing, he and my mother thought it was time to round out my Cold War education. They thought I was old enough and mature enough to get a broader perspective on the situation. So when they saw Dr. Strangelove was going to show on a big screen again, they were elated to get to see it again and take me for a lesson in politics, the military, the Cold War, The Bomb and the art of satire done to perfection.

I knew this was something really huge because my dad, reading the Sunday paper, snapped out of his usual Sunday paper blasé reverie making occasional “pfft” noises, sat up, yelled to my mother, “You won’t believe this!” He jumped up, newspaper clutched in his hand, and race-walked to my mother in the kitchen. My mother looked concerned. That look of, “Oh no. Who died?” My dad said, jabbing excitedly at the newspaper, “Look! Look! Look!” My mother’s expression changed from worry and concern to instant elation. “Do you know what this means?” she said excitedly.

“I know, I know!”

My mother, stealing a glance at me, said in hushed voice, “Do you think she’s old enough? She can be kind of impressionable about this sort of thing, the last thing we need is to cause more problems for her at school.”

“Bah! She’s old enough, and if it causes problems at school, good! Trillian! Finish your homework! We’re going to a movie after dinner tonight.”

“What are we gonna see?” I said, confused and worried about what my parents were so excited and worried about letting me see. And also embarrassed about going to a movie with my parents. Because 11 year olds dread going to movies with their parents. Especially movies their parents want them to see, “important” movies.

“Dr. Strangelove!!!!” my parents exclaimed in unison, the way I might exclaim to you that I have a backstage pass for The Pixies!!!!!

Okay. So. Somewhere in my 11 year old brain I had an inkling of an idea of what Dr. Strangelove was. But my 11 year old brain was confusing it and swirling it around with The Island of Doctor Moreau and Dr. No. My parents, my father especially, were always big James Bond fans. My dad, like most real men, manly Marine men, is fond of Sean Connery’s James Bond. So. I’d seen Dr. No. And The Island of Doctor Moreau was on my reading list for next semester and my brother had a copy of the book, a worn out paperback with weird '70s art on the cover. So a lot of (now, in hindsight) humorous thoughts and visions were running through my head during dinner before the movie.

You might wonder why I remember this all so vividly.

Well, because my life was forever changed that night. It was like falling in love. Actually, it wasn't like falling in love, it was falling in love.

My mother put her Sunday church clothes back on and my dad wore his “date” outfit, the ensemble he wore when he and my mother went out without us kids. He shaved and put on after shave for the occasion. My dad used to spin tunes on the hi-fi and whistle as he shaved and got cleaned up for a date with my mother. (He still does, but now that they’ve transitioned to CD and Bose and his version of spiffed up is blue trousers instead of tan, the pre-date excitement isn’t as palpable. He doesn’t whistle as much these days.) But, back then my parents going on a date was a bigger deal than it is now. Excitement about freedom from the kids for a few hours and a quiet meal in a restaurant has been replaced by excitement about spending time with the kids for a few hours.

But back then date night was a big deal, a deal that did not include us kids. And here we were, on a Sunday night, my dad was spinning records on the hi-fi and shaving and whistling, snapping his fingers to punctuate the Dave Brubeck beat between strokes of the razor. My mother wore a pair of “nice” earrings and a matching necklace to sexy up her church outfit. This was definitely a date. No doubt about it. It had all the benchmarks.

Except this time my parents were taking me with them.

This was unprecedented.

I felt kind of weird about wearing jeans and sneakers and a t-shirt on a date with my parents. I'd never been on a date, but, when my parents went on their dates, and when my brother and sister went on dates, and when people on tv and in movies went on dates, they got spiffed up in "good" clothes. But I was already marked out as one of the biggest dorks at school, a member of the Nerd Herd, and I didn’t want to risk falling further from grace with the cool kids at school should some of them be at the theater and see me with my parents. It would be bad enough to be seen at a theater with my parents, but worse to be seen with them, on a date, and me in my "good" clothes. At that point I was growing about one inch taller per week. I had exactly one pair of jeans which would not be considered "floods." They weren't a cool brand of jeans but in the darkness of the theater people might not notice the brand, but they would notice floods so I chose the best of the two options I had available. Long but dorky brand jeans. My brother left a bunch of stuff in his closet when he went back to college that year. He was going to graduate that year and was already making transitions to life after college. I "borrowed" a bunch of that stuff. Records. Books. And some faded, worn t-shirts. I loved the irony of me, a kid on the cusp of being a huge Clash fan, wearing outdated Steve Miller or Thin Lizzy or Endless Summer t-shirts most people were using as rags to wash the car. They were outdated when my brother had them, he only wore them to work on the car or around the house when he was home from college. Even he wouldn't have been caught dead in them for several years before I absconded, I mean borrowed them. It was my first attempt at anti-fashion ironic fashion. At least that's what I told myself in the mirror when I was getting psyched up to go out wearing one of them. And for the record I'd give anything to have that Steve Miller pegasus logo or Endless Summer t-shirt. I wore both of them well into my college years, until they fell apart in the wash. Deep down, way deep down, so deep I'd never admit it to anyone, the real reason I loved to wear them was because they were my brother's and wearing them made me feel close to him. They closed some of the physical distance between us - thousands of miles didn't seem so far when I was wearing his old t-shirts. So I opted for the Endless Summer t-shirt and a cast-off windbreaker from his tennis team days to go with my dorky jeans.

Yes. I remember exactly what I was wearing the first time I saw Dr. Strangelove. Doesn't everyone?

Fortunately the only people we saw at the theater were some of my parents’ friends and the parents of one of my friends in band (a fellow Nerd Herder). My friend’s parents gave my parents a look, that look parents give each other like, “You think she’s ready for this? We didn’t think our Jimmy was ready…” accompanied by arched eyebrows questioning my parents’ judgment. This only added to my confusion and wonderment about what we were about to see.

I sat next to my mother. My dad had his arm around my mother and when the movie started, he have me a jocular dad pat on the shoulder, like, “This is it, kiddo, here we goooo!” the type he gave me when we rode on roller coasters.

Which is an utterly appropriate comparison.

The opening sequence shot in black and white and with the broadest, biggest, shapeliest camera angles I’d ever seen slowly pulled me in (my mother fidgeting embarrassingly at the bedroom scene, patting my knee, giving me furtive glances, probably trying to figure out if I had any clue what the innuendos were in that scene and hoping and praying I was still too innocent to get it.) And then, oh glory be, then, Kubrick released the clutch and sent me catapulting and careening on a lifelong love affair with his opinions on art direction, comedy, politics and what to do with gifted actors.

I got it, all right. Boy did I get it. I was sitting laughing at the dialog and marveling at the art direction right along with my parents. (okay, I didn’t realize what art direction was at the time, but I knew it was visually very, very different from anything else I’d ever seen and I knew I would never “look” at things the same way, both literally and metaphorically) At 11, I didn’t “get it” the way my parents did, I didn’t know enough about the military, politics, the Bay of Pigs and communism, but, I got a lot of it and knew that as I got older I would get a lot more of it. And I realized that Peter Sellers is the funniest man who ever lived. Up to that point I only knew him from the Pink Panther movies, which I liked (my parents love those movies, too) but in my 11 year old mind they were verging on the Three Stooges territory. I realized I hated the Three Stooges when I was around 6 years old. At age 11, after seeing Dr. Strangelove and realizing the brilliance of Peter Sellers, I re-watched the Pink Panther movies and learned the intricacies and intelligence which sets Peter Sellers’ Pink Panthers on a level high above the anything the Three Stooges could have ever dreamed of attaining. It’s embarrassing to admit I even ever connected Peter Sellers’ Pink Panther with the Three Stooges, but hey, I was a kid. A nerdy kid.

There’s a bigger point here. What I realized that night was that my parents were intelligent, funny people. I’d kind of suspected it. But no 11 year old wants to admit that about their parents. But there we were watching Dr. Strangelove and there was the proof. There was no denying it, now: My parents were decent human beings.

Crap.

Now where would I target my impending teen angst?

You don’t ask to be born. Your parents make you be born, then you go to school and you realize life really sucks and it seems so easy and obvious to blame your parents for everything because they made you, forced you to exist, and then you are forced to face the fact that your parents are actually intelligent, funny decent human beings. Life is so unfair.

(That’s a joke, people. Really. I’m in a foul mood, but I’m still capable of sarcasm and making fun of teen angst.)

We'd make jokes about the movie, quote the dialog. After that I had inside jokes with my parents. That year I made my mother a Mother's Day card with altered movie poster art, the backs of my parents heads with my arms hugging my mother and instead of planes flying over I had birds and hearts. I replaced the movie title with, "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Mom." My parents framed it. It hung in the entry way for years.

See? There's a lot of feeling there. A lot wrapped up in Dr. Strangelove. Not just the brilliance of Kubrick's vision and Sellers' (et al) comedic genius, but a lot of emotions, maybe even joy, connected with my parents and Dr. Strangelove.

That movie has been omnipresent in my life. Swut. It's been omnipotent in my life. Right up there with Douglas Adams (which, by the way, my dad gave me HGTTG for my 12th birthday. Dammit. Something else I owe to him. Along with Roald Dahl, blues, jazz, soul, and vintage rock and roll. And I owe my love to art to my mother who took me to museums every month where we'd sit and look at a painting and she'd ask me to tell her about it, what I thought about it, what I saw.)

And that's a problem. I can't stop feeling about aspects of my life which involve my parents and a few close friends. The thing is, voiding emotions is an all or nothing endeavor. You go all the way or you don't go at all. I'm not going to stop feeling about my parents. That's stupid. Cold. Weird. Impossible. So they were excluded from the start. But what I failed to recognize was that there are a lot of things, a lot of emotion inspiring things, tied to my parents. So I've learned to stop worrying about that and love my mom.

But what about Tom Waits? The Pixies? Paul Klee? Jackson Pollock? Douglas Adams? Charles Dickens? Partaking of their works means agreeing to feel something. A lot of somethings. So you either rid yourself of anything which might evoke feelings or you accept that you are simply going to have to feel an emotion now and then.

Life is so unfair.

What sparked this resurgence in voiding emotions?

My desire and efforts to void myself of emotions never waned. I've worked really hard at reaching a balance between truly feeling nothing and remaining in touch, aware and "there" for my family and close friends.

And, upsetting as the past few months have been regarding my father's health, I know I've been able to deal with it a bazillion times better than I would have a few years ago. Not because I care less or more about him, but because I've learned to ignore so many emotional impulses that I can make myself focus on the facts, learning what's going on and learning what needs to be done. Focus on the reality and practical issues regarding cancer and caring for cancer patients. Knowledge is power. Wasting time feeling can render you powerless. That's not to say I haven't been distraught, upset, sad, scared, angry, forlorn, and frustrated, just to name a few emotions I've felt in the past few months. But, when they strike I switch gears and force myself to focus on something practical. No. I'm not squelching the emotion. I know it sounds like I am, but I'm not. I'm enough in touch with myself and my feelings to know what they are at the first glimmer of a feeling. So when say, fear, for instance, hits, I force myself to have the inner dialog on fear. "Think, Trillian, think. What is fear? Fear is an emotion we learn. Why am I feeling scared? Where did I learn to feel scared? Because people suffer and die because of cancer. It happens all day and night, every day and night, in every country, to everyone. Cancer is a horrible, painful, deadly thing which hurts people and kills them. There are many noted cases on file. That's why I'm scared. Okay, fair enough. But the fact is that your dad has cancer. Being afraid of it isn't going to make it go away. So feeling afraid is pointless, solves nothing and takes time, gray matter and energy away from doing or thinking something useful. So stop whining like a scared little girl and go do more research on his cancer and find out what to expect so you can anticipate what may happen and what you can do to help your dad. You'll be ready, not overwhelmed and scared."

Dialogs like that run through my head like the CNN newscrawler. Name an emotion, good or bad, and I have a script for banishing it. What I've learned is that most emotions are pointless. Even the good ones.

I always thought I was a fairly focused person - or that I could maintain focus when it was important to do so. But holy even keel, I'm like an automaton these days. It is amazing what you can accomplish if you form an action plan every time you feel and emotion. Ask me anything about kidney and bladder cancer in males over age 65. Go ahead, ask me. See how fast I respond. I'm not saying I could lead a research team or perform an operation, but, if there's research data available I've read it. I know more about my dad's cancer than he does. I've studied the cell structures, I know what the abnormal cells look like and what the healthy normal cells look like. I know what to expect in the coming months and (statistically) two years. Does it make it "easier" to be so knowledgeable? Yes. And no. It still hurts. It's still scary. I still get angry. I don't want my dad to die and I especially don't want cancer to have its way with him. But. This is life and it's not about what I or you or anyone else wants. It's about nature and biology and the cycle of birth, disease, death. I love my dad, but tell that to cancer. In the end we're all just lumps of cells which can be clinically analyzed and explained.

This outlook has helped me deal with the latest stupidity at work. I need a job. That's just a "clinical" fact of life. Job = Money. Money = Food and Shelter. I'm trying to find a job somewhere else. I'd like to keep my current job. Why? Because I like what I do. I like my clients. Yes. I have difficulty stomaching my boss and most of my coworkers. And that's problematic. Yes, I'm getting the shaft in this situation. But. Take the emotion out of it, develop action plans. I'll still be fired, perhaps, but I didn't succumb to the emotions tangled up in this mess. I've been working on a few plans.

Part of one of those plans was talking to HR.

Hooooo boy, was that an interesting conversation.

I left "feeling" pretty good about a few things, and pretty rotten about some others. We'll see what shakes out in the next week. Could be interesting.

But. The person in HR who shall remain title-less remarked that I seemed very calm and pragmatic about what's happening. The HR person was concerned I was either in denial or ready to go postal, the calm before the storm. The title-less person knows me well enough to know I am anti violence and gun and the postal thing was a (bad) joke. But strong concern about my apparent lack of anger at a few key people was voiced.

"Ya know, I've just never been an angry person. Stuff makes me mad, but anger itself never solves anything. I just try to see the humor or devise a constructive plan for dealing with whatever makes me angry."

"That's very enlightened, Mother Teresa, but repressing emotions, especially anger, isn't the healthiest thing you can do."

"I'm not repressing anger, I'm just dealing with it, practically rather than emotionally."

"Again, very enlightened, Mother Teresa, but getting angry is part of being human. If you don't allow yourself to be human you're denying yourself, censoring yourself."

"Censorship makes me angry. And your accusation that I would censor anything or anyone, even myself, makes me angry. I don't think I like your tone. har har."

"See? There you go - making jokes about it."

"I get it, okay? I understand what you're saying and really, I'm not censoring myself. I get angry about lots of stuff."

"Like what?"

"Michael Vick. And anyone else who purposely hurts animals."

"No, Trillian, I mean things other than obvious violations of humanity."

"Must not have been that obvious, the dog abuse was going on for years before he got caught."

"Get back to work. But satisfy my curiosity. Over the next few days write down everything that makes you mad or angry and how you reacted and dealt with it - just a little or a lot. Let's see how much anger you're repressing."

Roll of eyes.

"That's first on the list. Write that down as number one: 10:47 AM. Mad at HR for telling me I'm repressing anger. Rolled eyes. Netted no results, added more fuel to the ulcer."

Okay. I got the point. I don't think I'm repressing anything, at least not to an unhealthy degree. I'm not a door mat. I'm not a ticking time bomb.

Or. Well. I dunno. Maybe I am and I just don't realize it.

So I tried the exercise.

The results so far are not surprising to me. But. I am seeing some trends. See if you see if you spot them. It's like "Where's Waldo" without the stripy sweater and scarf and hat.

12:15 PM. Bit into sandwich procured at local sub shop and discovered mushrooms on a sandwich, even though I distinctly specified "no mushrooms." Like I do every time I go into this shop. And yet they insist on putting mushrooms on my sandwiches. Mushrooms and a lot of other stuff I don't want on there. 7 out of ten sandwiches are "wrong" when I get them back to my office. Stupid, careless minimum wage employees who do not care about customer service? Perhaps, in some cases, yes, but also a language barrier. Five people working behind the counter and only one speaks broken English. The one employee translates all the orders to the other employees. This situation is rife for disaster on the customer service front, and why I continue to give them my hard earned money defies logic. Picked apart sandwich and discovered a lone stray piece of turkey in the sandwich along with an entire field of mushrooms. (Note to self: Can a vegetarian sue a restaurant which serves an animal hidden in sandwich?) Threw away entire sandwich, will have Mike and Ikes from the vending machine for lunch instead. Vowed to never step foot in the sandwich shop again.

12:25 PM. Coin changer will not accept $5 bill with new design. Okay, this doesn't make me mad, I understand the need for new designs on currency and I even like the new designs. But what makes me mad is that the entire currency recognizing machinery industry will have to be retooled to accept old and new currency designs. I should have been a product designer or engineer. Job security. Especially in industries reliant on government produced items like currency. Scrounged in purse and desk for change to buy lunch of Mike and Ikes from vending machine.

2:00 PM. New girl fighting with mother-in-law-to-be about "weddin'" plans. Again. Felt tense and anxious and embarrassed and angry for being forced to hear the personal fight. Closed office door. Read the Girl Scout pledge. Watched a Ren and Stimpy snippet on YouTube.

6:14 PM. Grocery store cashier wouldn't honor store's own coupon received on receipt at previous visit. "$5 off your next shopping order!" Cashier couldn't make the bar code scan and insisted the coupon was not valid. Paid the $5 (used the new design $5 the coin changer at work wouldn't accept and felt oddly vindicated in a man v. machine kind of way) because the line behind me was getting really long and I didn't want to be the person who made all those other people wait just because I have a $5 off your next shopping order coupon and the cashier can't get it to scan into the price reader. Put coupon in purse where it will get smushed and wrinkled and will reside on the bottom of the bag for a few months.

8:00 PM. TV sucks. It doesn't make me mad. Just thought I should log my disgust at the lowest common denominator intelligence factor in most television programming.

6:38 AM. Bo ho poseur on bus reeked of patchouli. Made me feel nauseous and tense. Moved to another seat. Still smelled the patchouli and felt more tense and consequently more angry at her for inflicting her love of things hippie onto an enclosed bus full of strangers. Got off the bus six stops early, gulped in fresh air and felt instantly better even though I had to limp an extra six blocks on my still swollen, still painful surgeried foot. It was worth it to get out of the stench of patchouli. Mused that I was like an animal who gnaws off its own leg to get out of a trap.

10:15 AM. While on my way to a meeting, passed new coworker being openly groped by her fiance in hallway. Their rudeness and lack of professionalism made me angry. I'm no prude and I'm not jealous, but shouldn't have to be subjected to that at work. She should be focusing on her work projects. Why is she being paid to plan her wedding and get groped? Rolled eyes. Went to meeting. Tried to erase the image of her fiancé's hand inside the back of her skirt burned into my retina.

10:33 AM. Felt nauseous during meeting when boss talked while eating a Twinkie, licking her lips and swishing the Twinkie around while she talked. Gross. Rude. Aaack. I cannot believe this woman is the boss of me.

11:58 PM. Can't sleep. Foot hurts. Mad at the medical community for charging ridiculous amounts of money for medically necessary treatments and medications. Wonder if I'll ever not be in pain and how much it will cost me to be pain free. Realize that's a pointless pondering. Take more pain meds.

2:30 AM. Mad at head banger neighbor for listening to Motorhead at amps at 11 volume for two hours straight. Didn't realize Motorhead had such an extensive body of work. But angry nonetheless. Knocked on door to politely ask him to turn down his stereo. Felt like a stupid old lady. He pretended to not hear me knocking on the door. Or maybe really didn't. Either way, got nowhere. Sent another email to condo association complaining about noisy neighbor. Got no gratification from that. Contemplated calling cops with a noise complaint. Didn't want to be that woman.

11:33 AM. Smell of burned microwave popcorn permeates entire office. Why? Why would someone be so thoughtless and selfish?

6:25 PM. Guy on the treadmill next to me made stupid jokes about how slow I was going and laughed when I did my backwards walking exercises on the treadmill. Tried to see the humor in it, keep things light and congenial, told him I was training for the next OK-Go video. He didn't get it. Hiked up my sweats so my huge disgusting scar was on view, hoped it would not only gross him out but make him feel really ashamed for making fun of the crippled chick at the gym. Realized how childish that was but still thought he needed a slap in the face with my reality. Jerk.

8:00 PM. Tried new sesame tofu recipe. Hated it. Mad that I spent a lot of money on ingredients for a recipe I ended up not liking and mad at myself for not being content with the existing sesame tofu recipes I have and like. Had toast and peanut butter for dinner.

11:30 PM. Pain. Really mad at the medical community for not easing this horrendous pain and swelling. Contemplate the pros and cons of gnawing off own leg.

6:34 AM. Waiting for bus. In the rain. No covered bus shelters for those of us not in the high property tax bracket. We don't pay enough property tax to deserve covered train and bus stops. Mad at Mayor Daley. In general. And because of the lack of covered bus and train stops in my part of town. Mad that I pay a lot of property taxes in this city and get little or nothing useful in return. But not mad at the feel of rain on my face. It calms me. But. Mad that a guy waiting for the bus is smoking under an umbrella. The smell of smoke mingling with the musty rain smell makes me feel ill and tense and detracts from the pleasure I was enjoying of the rain on my face. Move further away from bus stop to avoid smelling smoke. End up in the back of the queue because of this and subsequently did not get a seat and spent entire bus ride standing smushed further back into a swelling crowd of passengers with their Coughuppalottabucks, jostled by potholes the size of Rhode Island and sent careening perilously close to disaster for my surgeried foot and ankle. Apparently we have a huge illiterate community in my neighborhood because the buses very clearly state "No smoking, drinking or eating on buses, trains and stations." I should feel sorry for these illiterate people, because reading is a right, not a privilege. But still, common sense should prevail in anyone over the age of 7. Riding a bus with a hot smelly beverage splashing out of the cup as the bus jostles along pothole scarred roads doesn't make a lot of sense. Turned up the iPod, resisted urge to aggressively nod head in time to Planet of Sound but know the volume was so loud the coffee slurping/splashing co-passengers were angry at me. Score: 1 for the non-coffee drinkers on the bus. Realize this is childish. Don't care.

9:30 AM. Discover what I thought was orange yogurt is actually peach. I hate peach yogurt. Mad at myself for not studying the container better when selecting yogurt flavors. Throw it away. Go morning snackless as punishment to myself.

10:45 AM. Hear new coworker fighting on phone with someone about her "weddin'" plans. Really, really getting sick of this. Seriously. What does she actually contribute to the company and why is she getting a paycheck to argue about her "weddin'" plans?

6:15 PM. Start playlist sent by friend. Excited to have some new music for the gym. Enjoy it until an irritating song starts with a voice I know but can't quite place, look at play list, discover it's Sean Lennon. Roll eyes. Wonder why she would include this on a playlist for me. Figure it's her idea of a joke. Skip to the next song, check to see that it's not Dhani Harrison, or worse, Julian Lennon, continue workout but get riled up thinking about the Beatles and worse, all the Beatles offspring who are "musicians," remember that Ringo Starr's kid plays drums in Oasis and decide I hate Oasis even more than I realized. Decide it's more than Liam Gallagher, but also because a Beatle's kid is involved. Laugh at the realization that I've had an epiphany of anger. Suddenly realize I'm gripping the stationary bike grips so hard my fists hurt and notice my blood pressure is scoring really high even though I'm not cycling that hard. Contemplate the serious hatred I have for all things Beatles and realize I should consider therapy for this, because really all you need is love. But rather than laugh at my own stupid joke I feel even more pissed off and tense because of stupid trite smarmy pith set to irritating cutesy melodies and mediocre musicianship. I don't have a plan for dealing with my anger issues with the Beatles. There's no escape. I've spent a lifetime trying. I've tried to make peace, tried to understand, tried to live and let live, but there's no escape. They're everywhere. And they reproduced and their spawn are everywhere. For some reason I can't explain this fills me with loathing and contempt. The original Beatles b(r)and is bad enough, but the perpetuation of the b(r)and makes me mad. Probably because deep down I know it's genius marketing and I'm jealous I wasn't around to think of it first. Realize I really, seriously need professional help with this Beatles thing.

Labels: Anger Management, Dr. Strangelove

1:39 PM

Thursday, April 10, 2008  

If you would like to:

Learn to Recognize Animal Cruelty;
Report Animal Cruelty;
Set a Good Example for Others;
Fight for the Passage of Anti-Cruelty Laws by Joining the ASPCA Advocacy Brigade;

then for crying out loud, go take the pledge to help animals. If you're not sure if you're ASPCA Pledge material I have two words for you: Michael Vick. How do those two words make you feel? Right. See? You are ASPCA Pledge material.

It doesn't cost anything (unless you can put a price on helping fight animal cruelty) and takes about 20 seconds (depending on how fast you can type your name and zip code). Today is the perfect day to take the pledge! Why today? Because April 10 is ASPCA Day in the US. If you notice more orange than usual, the reason may be ASPCA. Many cities are showing support by illuminating buildings in orange light. You can bask in an orange glow to show support, too! Wear orange, put an orange collar or lead on your dog or cat, make orange cookies and take them to work, change your porch light bulb to an orange bulb, or tie an orange ribbon somewhere outside your home. Sure, people will talk, but that's a good thing. Talking about animals and advocating for them is a good thing. Pointing friends and neighbors to the ASPCA Pledge is a good thing, too.

Still uncertain why you should bother to take the ASPCA Pledge? Well, maybe you are actually Michael Vick in which case you're at the wrong blog. Or maybe you think it means you have to go out and rescue animals and you have those pesky allergies and that abject paranoia of cats and a busy schedule. I understand. But taking the Pledge doesn't mean you have to go out and rescue animals in need. 1,000,000 "signatures" on the Pledge will give the ASPCA and its reps in DC the backing power for future legislation issues concerning animal safety and cruelty issues.

Here's a real life example: Currently in Illinois there is a heated debate raging about double decker transport trailers (usually used for cows or pigs) being used for horses. It's incredibly unsafe for horses to be in double decker trailers. 1) Many horses sustain life threatening/fatal external and internal injuries while in those trailers, and 2) there have been numerous horrific accidents which resulted in serious injury and death to humans and horses because of these trailers. (They're the 1999 - 2002 Ford Explorer of animal transport trailers) Seems like a no-brainer, right? Just ban the things and arrest anyone caught doing this. Well, hold your horses, there buckaroo, not so fast. There are actually people lobbying to defeat this legislation. Why? Because they want to transport as many horses as possible at one time - it saves them from making more than one trip. Sure, they save gas, and we're all for the environment and fewer trips and less emissions is a good thing. But. This is a case where the means doesn't justify the end. Too many horses and people have been killed or seriously injured to make "saving gas emissions" a viable reason to continue to allow the double decker practice.

"Okay, Trill, sheesh, okay, poor horses, that's awful. You live in a stupid state with stupid legislators. That doesn't explain why I should take this pledge."

Yes it does. When the ASPCA has 1,000,000 people pledging to help animals, ASPCA reps then have 1,000,000 "voices" backing them when they make their case on the Senate, House or courtroom floor, be it at the local, state or federal level. They will have the right to say, "The ASPCA has 1,000,000 people who pledge to help animals. Animal cruelty is not something 1,000,000 people will tolerate. Do you want those 1,000,000 in your in-box calling you Michael Vick's best friend? Right. Of course not. So vote for animal safety."

Get it? It's the power of a quiet mass of concerned people who take the time to speak up for animals. By pledging you are advocating for animals and animal legislation. Yes, by taking the pledge you are part of something really big and really important.

Labels: ASPCA, ASPCA Day, ASPCA Pledge, Go Orange for Animals

9:10 AM

Wednesday, April 09, 2008  

I swear I'm not a Simpsons blogger. I swear. Really.

But. This is too um, interesting, to not share.

I've never really yearned to go to Venezuela. So not a huge deal that I have to cross it off the list of places to visit. It's not that they banned the Simpsons, it's that they banned the Simpsons and replaced them with Baywatch. The Simpsons is a "bad influence" for kids, they say, but apparently it's a-okay for Venezuelan kiddies to see Pam Anderson's silicon running, nipples protruding from a thin barely there "bathing suit," in slow motion. Then again, Venezuela is known for producing a lot of beauty pageant first place tiara winners. So perhaps Baywatch is better, or at least more culturally relevant, for the little ones than the Simpsons.

Sigh. This gives me multiple sadgasms. Even if it is just Venezuela, it's still sad.






But on a brighter note, 20 more days until I may be unemployed! Woo hoo! Oh sure, that's sad, but it'll give me lots of free time to prepare for the concert event of the year. No, not Lollapalooza, the Flight of the Conchords! Oh sure, I may be unemployed and my home may be in foreclosure in a couple months, but that's not going to stop me from seeing New Zealand's 4th most popular folk parody duo live! See? Life(?) isn't all bad.

Labels: Sadgasm, The Simpsons

9:39 PM